FROM THE KNOXVILLE NEWS SENTINEL

The Philadelphians Prison Ministry in Knoxville has been serving the area’s prisons for the last 35 years by bringing praise and worship to prisoners and connecting with them through ministry. Unfortunately, that changed last month when the ministry’s prison bus, which they use to bring their traveling worship service to prisons in East Tennessee, finally broke down after 22 years of service.

PPM Treasurer Barry Sweat explained that the travelling worship programs take a full ensemble of musicians to the Northeast Correctional Center and the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex every weekend and that it has helped the ministry connect with thousands of inmates in its three and a half decades.

“We take a full worship service to prisons; music, keyboard, guitar, bass, drums, I mean it’s a full professional music group when we go in,” he said. “We take a full service in, and that’s why we need a bus. We’ve had a bus for 22 years and it’s finally died about a month ago.”

Losing the bus has had a devastating impact on the ministry’s ability to reach out to and connect with East Tennessee’s inmate population, according to PPM Executive Director Cathy Root. The ministry also operates a halfway house in North Knoxville, but A\according to Root and Sweat the ministry’s true potential to help inmates comes from its weekly visits to the prisons that came to an abrupt halt when their bus broke down.

“We are support system inside the prisons,” Root said, “and then when they come here we’re still a support system and that’s what they need.”

“It would be like telling a large church that you don’t have the funds to be able to have a choir anymore or have music anymore,” Sweat added. “We’re not entertainment. We’re not a gospel group. It’s a ministry.”

Now, the Philadelphian Prison Ministry is look for help to reestablish what has been a vital part of their service for decades. Their previous bus, which they receive in 1995, was donated by a generous businessman that they met while travelling to a prison near Nashville. The bus cost him $86,000 in 1995, according to Sweat, and the ministry expects a new bus to cost as much as $150,000. Sweat explained that the challenge in raising the money for the new bus came in showing the community the good that the ministry has been doing inside the prisons.

“The thing that people don’t realize is the big impact that the ministry has,” Sweat said. “When we go in, we have 120 men that come to our service at one prison, which is unheard of. No one has anything close that of the other groups that come in.”

“The problem with going to do programs in prisons is that it’s not like doing a program at a church where you’ve got 1,000 people who can see that,” he added. “When you go into a prison, people don’t see that. They don’t see the impact that it’s having in there.”

According to Root, that impact goes beyond sharing songs and scripture. She explained that the ministry’s real goal is to help prepare the inmates for life outside of prison and to help them find a way to live responsible, fulfilling lives.

“We want to change their thinking, because why come out of prison if your thinking is still where it was?” she said. “So that’s our goal, our mission, to change their way of thinking and then to help them to really get it.”

“It’s not just that we do so much, it’s that we demonstrate love,” she added. “They know that we love them, and if they can feel loved then they can feel God’s love too, and that’s the greatest impact on them.”

The Philadelphians Prison Ministry can be reached at 865-689-5833 or online at www.jesusinprison.org

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Andrew Capps, Knoxville Published 5:56 p.m. ET July 24, 2017 | Updated 3:56 p.m. ET July 26, 2017